18. Greer #2
"And you think mine isn't?" The question comes out too sharp. "You think I'm just randomly hurting people for fun? Zaria's operations are strategic, Lilah. Everything we do serves a purpose. Nothing is random or cruel for cruelty's sake."
"But where does it end?" Her hands twist together. "What happens when you have to kill someone? When the violence escalates past interrogations and beatings into something you can't take back?"
The question hangs in the air between us. I think about Musa last night, how easily I could have hurt him if Zaria had asked. How I wouldn't have hesitated if it meant protecting her or her crew.
"I don't know," I admit. "But I trust Zaria not to ask me to cross lines I'm not ready to cross. And I trust myself to know when something goes too far."
"That's not enough." Lilah's voice drops to a whisper. "Trust isn't enough when you're talking about life and death decisions. I trusted Dylan for three years, and look how that turned out."
"This is different?—"
"You keep saying that!" Her voice rises again. "But how do I know? How do I know you're not making the same mistakes I did, getting pulled deeper into something dangerous until it's too late to get out?"
Hayes finally speaks, his voice cutting through the tension. "Lilah."
She turns to him, and something in his tone makes her stop mid-breath.
"You trust me," Hayes says quietly. "Even though I'm still in that world.
Even though I do violent things, run dangerous operations, make life and death decisions regularly.
" His hand finds her cheek. "You trust that I know the difference between necessary violence and cruelty.
That I can live in that darkness and still come home to you clean. "
"That's different," Lilah whispers. "You were already in that world when I met you?—"
"And Greer chose to enter it with full knowledge of what it means.
" Hayes's gray-blue eyes stay on her face.
"He's been training with me for a year. He knows exactly what he's getting into.
The difference between him and you with Dylan is that Dylan took your choices away.
Greer is making active choices every day to stay in Zaria's world. "
"Choices that could get him killed," Lilah argues.
"Yes." Hayes doesn't sugarcoat it. "But they're still his choices to make."
Lilah turns back to me, and the fear in her eyes makes my chest ache. "I can't lose you too," she says. "I can't—I already almost lost you once when Dylan—" Her breath hitches. "I can't go through that again."
"You won't." I close the distance between us, pulling her into a hug. She resists for a second, then collapses against me. "I promise, Lilah. I'm being careful. I'm training constantly. Hayes is still teaching me, and now Cain is too. I know what I'm doing."
"You can't promise that." Her words are muffled against my shoulder. "You can't promise you won't get hurt in that world."
She's right. I can't promise that. But I also can't promise I won't walk outside and get hit by a car tomorrow, or that my normal corporate job won't eventually kill me through stress and meaninglessness.
"I need you to trust me," I say instead. "The way I trusted you when you chose Hayes. The way I didn't try to talk you out of being with someone in the mafia because I knew—I knew—that he was different from Dylan. That what you had with Hayes was real and safe and exactly what you needed."
Lilah pulls back, wiping at her eyes. "That's not the same?—"
"It's exactly the same." I keep my hands on her shoulders.
"You're asking me to walk away from someone who makes me feel real for the first time.
Someone who sees all the dark parts of me and doesn't flinch.
Someone who trusts me with her operations and her crew and her life.
" My throat tightens. "I'm not asking you to understand it. Just trust that I know what I'm doing."
She stares at me for a long moment, and I can see her trying. Trying to reconcile the brother she knows with the person I've become. Trying to separate her own trauma from my choices. Trying to trust that I'm not repeating her mistakes.
"I'll try," she says finally. "I'll try to trust you. But Greer—" Her voice breaks again. "Please be careful. Please don't let the violence consume you the way it almost consumed me."
"I won't." I pull her into another hug, and this time she holds on tight. "I promise."
Hayes meets my eyes over her head, and something passes between us. Understanding, maybe. Recognition that we both love women who live in darkness, and that loving them means accepting the violence that comes with it.
They leave twenty minutes later, Lilah still worried but trying to be supportive. Hayes squeezes my shoulder on the way out, a silent acknowledgment of—something. Respect, maybe. Or recognition that I've truly crossed over into his world now.
I close the door behind them and lean against it, suddenly exhausted despite the early hour.
The house feels too quiet without their presence. Too empty. Too much like the life I had before Zaria—clean and safe and completely hollow.
I move to the living room and sink onto the couch, staring at the coffee table where my laptop sits closed. Right there is the evidence of my double life—corporate analyst by day, criminal operative by night. Two versions of myself that somehow have to coexist.
Lilah's words echo in my head. You can't be good and violent. Where does it end? What happens when you have to kill someone?
I think about Musa tied to that chair last night, how easily I took him apart through strategic questioning. How I would have hurt him physically if Zaria had asked, without hesitation or guilt.
I think about Rasheed and Felix, both of whom I beat bloody for stealing from Zaria's operations. How satisfying it felt to use my hands, to channel all that darkness into something productive.
I think about the next time—because there will be a next time—when someone threatens what's mine. When Zaria needs me to eliminate a problem permanently instead of just interrogating or beating.
Will I hesitate? Will some part of my old self surface and balk at crossing that final line?
Or will I do it without flinching, the same way Hayes killed Dylan to protect Lilah?
The question sits heavy in my chest because I genuinely don't know the answer. I like to think I have boundaries, limits I won't cross. But every week I'm in Zaria's world, those boundaries shift a little further. Things that would have horrified me four months ago now feel routine.
Is that what Lilah meant about violence escalating? About it becoming normal until you don't remember what it was like before?
Except I do remember. I remember feeling empty and disconnected and like I was sleepwalking through life. I remember the darkness eating me alive with nowhere to put it, no outlet, no purpose.
Now I have purpose. Strategy and planning and using my brain to solve Zaria's problems. Partnership with someone who sees me completely and doesn't try to make me smaller or cleaner or more acceptable.
That has to count for something. The difference between Dylan's violence and mine—between abuse and protection—that has to be real and not just rationalization.
My phone buzzes against the coffee table. Zaria's name flashes across the screen.
Zaria: Friday planning at Marco's tonight. 8pm. Bring that strategic brain of yours.
Something in my chest eases at the message. Simple, direct, assuming I'll be there without question. Because of course I will be. Wild horses couldn't keep me away.
Greer: I'll be there.
Zaria: Good boy.
The words make heat curl in my stomach even through text, even sitting alone in my quiet suburban house that feels increasingly like a costume I wear between my real life.
Maybe that's the answer to Lilah's question. Maybe this is different because Zaria never asked me to change—I'm changing myself, choosing this life, becoming someone who can live in darkness and still be good where it matters.
Or maybe she's right and I'm just repeating patterns, justifying violence, sliding deeper into something I'll eventually regret.
I sit there in the morning light, my sister's fear still sharp in my memory, and I realize I don't have the answer. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
All I know is that I'm not walking away. Not from Zaria, not from her crew, not from the life I've built in her world.
Even if it costs me everything else.
Even if Lilah's right and I'm making a terrible mistake.
Even if the darkness I've embraced eventually consumes me the way she fears.
I'm choosing this. Actively, deliberately choosing violence and danger and a woman who kills without hesitation.
And I can't bring myself to regret it.